The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book (Little Brown, 1973) is a book written by Brendon C. Boyd & Fred C. Harris about baseball cards, primarily ones issued during the 1950s and 1960s, and the players on the cards.

Authors

Neither Brendon C. Boyd nor Fred C. Harris had published any books nor possessed any special expertise in the field of sports or sports memorablia when they decided to write the The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book. In 1971 while both were employed at a Boston bookstore, a customer inquired about books on baseball cards. Surprised to learn that there weren't any works on the subject, Harris told Boyd, "we should write one." So they pored over the cards they had collected in their youth and wrote The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book. Although the book doesn't indicate which author contributed which parts, generally Boyd covered players from the American League and Harris those in the National League. Publication of the book was probably aided by the 1972 publication of Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer, which rekindled interest in 1950s baseball.

Fred Harris was a creative writing teacher at the University of Massachusetts for a period and later owned a card shop in Belmont, Mass.

Brendan Boyd wrote another book, published in 1993, titled Blue Ruin: A Novel of the 1919 World Series. Accordingly to the back of Blue Ruin, "Brendan Boyd is a native of Boston who now lives in Paris with his wife, Elaine." In the introduction to the 1991 edition of The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book, he noted that his car had been stolen, and along with it his baseball card collection.

Subject Matter

"The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book," presents a humorous and usually irreverent account of the baseball cards that were distributed during the authors' youths and of the players depicted on the cards. The basic format consists of an image of a card of a player, or in a few instances a manager or umpire, accompanied by a short characterization of the card and the player. The commentary for each card ranges from a single sentence to a few hundred words. Unlike most sports-related publications, the vast majority of players featured in this book possessed mediocre talent and had been largely forgotten by 1973.

The book is not a baseball card guide in any respect and makes no pretense of being one—there's no indication what a card is worth or even that it has any intrinsic value other than the memories it invokes. Baseball card collecting in 1973 was primarily a childhood activity and invariably abandoned by young adulthood. The authors' stated assumption is that the cards one collected in his youth are all gone, as revealed in the book's closing comments, "We know, your mother, your own mother, threw them away." Instead, the authors present a nostalgic look at the part of their youth that involved collecting, trading, and flipping baseball cards.

Sections

The book is divided into four sections:

• Where Have You Gone Vince DiMaggio (Some Reflections On a Baseball Card Childhood)
• This Kid Is Going to Make It
• Profiles
• Some Final Observations on Trading, Hoarding, Collecting and Other Aberrations of the Baseball Card Life

The first section reminisces in a rapid-fire stream of consciousness flow about growing up and eventually coming of age in 1950s suburban America with Pez

PEZ

Pez is the brand name of an Austrian confectionery and the mechanical pocket dispensers for the same...

, cap-guns, Jujubes, and baseball cards. The second section delves into the Topps

Topps

The Topps Company, Inc., manufactures chewing gum, candy and collectibles. Based in New York, New York, Topps is best known as a leading producer of baseball cards, football cards, basketball cards, hockey cards and other sports and non-sports themed trading cards.-Company history:Topps itself was...

 trading card company and its pioneering executive Sy Berger

Sy Berger

Sy Berger was an employee of the Topps company for over 50 years. He is credited as being the co-designer of the 1952 Topps baseball series.-Topps:Berger's first day at Topps was also the first day that Topps began to produce Bazooka Gum...

 circa 1973. "There was Topps and then there was Topps," Harris says in the introduction to the 1991 reissue. (ref 2)

The bulk and the heart of the book is the section called "Profiles," containing the card images and player biographies. Usually one or two players are featured per page and the biography is by no means meant to be complete or unbiased, but rather a quick snapshot of what the authors remembered most about the player. In all there are 221 baseball players featured with no stated or apparent reason for their selection, although it can be gathered that many were picked for the humor potential inherent in some aspect of the player or the card itself. Most of the cards were issued from 1951 to 1963 with a few later ones included.

The last section of the book offers a short discourse on things to do with cards, from hoarding, trading, to finally collecting. The ending foreshadows the adult hobby of collecting baseball cards that was about to explode, although it is unlikely the authors were prescient of this.

Themes & Threads

The book is not written in a linear fashion. Each card and its accompanying commentary, with a few rare exceptions, stand alone and are not categorized, such as by team, league, era, position, etc. The ultimate effect of the seemingly scattershot arrangement is that the reader can start most anywhere and jump about without any loss of comprehension. That said, there are unstated themes that run through the book, or they could be described as threads that hold the story together.

Star players vs. journeymen players—
Unlike most every other sports book, and specifically those covering baseball players of the 1950s and early 1960s, The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book does not focus on the stars and legends of the game but rather on the lesser and forgotten players. Probably more than anything else this is what defines the book and gives it a unique perspective.

The great players, however, are not ignored; in fact, of the 221 presented, 15 are in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Among the stars mentioned are Sandy Koufax

Sandy Koufax

Sanford "Sandy" Koufax is a former left-handed baseball pitcher who played his entire 12-year Major League Baseball career for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers...

 (seen on his rookie card which is dubbed his “Bar Mizvah picture” because he looks so young), Ernie Banks

Ernie Banks

Ernest "Ernie" Banks , nicknamed "Mr. Cub", is a former Major League Baseball shortstop and first baseman. He played his entire 19-year baseball career with the Chicago Cubs . He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977.-High school years:Banks was a letterman and standout in football,...

 (remembered for having played on bad teams and being loved by everyone), Stan Musial

Stan Musial

Stanley Frank "Stan" Musial is a retired professional baseball player who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals . Nicknamed "Stan the Man", Musial was a record 24-time All-Star selection , and is widely considered to be one of the greatest hitters in baseball...

 (because of the unsolved mystery of why there was no card of him in 1950 and 1951) and Yogi Berra

Yogi Berra

Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra is a former American Major League Baseball catcher, outfielder, and manager. He played almost his entire 19-year baseball career for the New York Yankees...

 (because he's Yogi Berra). Those who didn’t get mentioned include Hank Aaron, Warren Spahn

Warren Spahn

Warren Edward Spahn was an American Major League Baseball left-handed pitcher. He played his entire 21-year baseball career in the National League. He won 20 games each in 13 seasons, including a 23-7 record when he was age 42...

, Harmon Killebrew

Harmon Killebrew

Harmon Clayton Killebrew , nicknamed "Killer" and "Hammerin' Harmon", was an American professional baseball first baseman, third baseman, and left fielder. During his 22-year career in Major League Baseball , he played for the Washington Senators, a team which later became the Minnesota Twins, and...

, Frank Robinson

Frank Robinson

Frank Robinson , is a former Major League Baseball outfielder and manager. He played from 1956–1976, most notably for the Cincinnati Reds and the Baltimore Orioles. He is the only player to win league MVP honors in both the National and American Leagues...

, Whitey Ford

Whitey Ford

Edward Charles "Whitey" Ford is a former Major League Baseball pitcher who spent his entire 18-year career with the New York Yankees. He was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974.-Early life and career:...

, and Roger Maris

Roger Maris

Roger Eugene Maris was an American Major League Baseball right fielder. During the 1961 season, he hit a record 61 home runs for the New York Yankees, breaking Babe Ruth's single-season record of 60 home runs...

. Mickey Mantle

Mickey Mantle

Mickey Charles Mantle was an American professional baseball player. Mantle is regarded by many to be the greatest switch hitter of all time, and one of the greatest players in baseball history. Mantle was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974.Mantle was noted for his hitting...

 is mentioned, but not only is his card not shown, it’s belittled for having been so abundant one year.

Players who have been forgotten—
It can be said that the book "is about players who have long since been forgotten by everybody but those who grew up collecting their cards and thinking them important simply because they were Major League ballplayers." The primary reason many of these players have been forgotten is because they weren’t very good, and that is how Boyd and Harris have remembered them: Some because they couldn’t field well, such as Dick Stuart

Dick Stuart

Richard Lee Stuart was a Major League Baseball first baseman from 1958 to 1966 and 1969. In 1967 and 1968, he played in Japan for the Taiyo Whales. Throughout his baseball career, Stuart was known as a fine hitter, but a subpar fielder, garnering the unique nickname of "Dr. Strangeglove" for his...

 and Marv Throneberry

Marv Throneberry

Marvin Eugene Throneberry was an American Major League Baseball player, best remembered as the starting first baseman for the 1962 New York Mets, a team which set the modern record for most losses in a season with 120....

, quite a few, including Doug Camilli

Doug Camilli

Douglas Joseph Camilli was a catcher in Major League Baseball. He played from 1960-1969 for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Washington Senators...

 and Eddie Miksis

Eddie Miksis

Edward Thomas Miksis was an American Major League Baseball player. Born in Burlington, New Jersey, he stood 6' 0" and weighed 185 lbs...

, because they couldn’t hit, or Casey Wise

Casey Wise

Kendall Cole "Casey" Wise was an American college and professional baseball player who was a Major League Baseball infielder during parts of four seasons, between 1957 and 1960, with three different clubs: the Chicago Cubs, the Milwaukee Braves and the Detroit Tigers.The son of longtime MLB scout...

, who really couldn't hit; and of course those who couldn’t pitch, like Dave DeBusschere

Dave DeBusschere

David Albert DeBusschere was an American NBA and major league baseball player and coach in the NBA. In 1996, DeBusschere was named as one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history....

 and Eli Grba

Eli Grba

Eli Grba is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. During his 5-year baseball career, he pitched for the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Angels . He was the first selection in the 1960 MLB expansion draft, and he became a charter member of the Angels...

 (of whom the authors report, "In addition to having the hardest name to pronounce in the big leagues he also had just about the worst stuff").

Players with funny names—
Several players are recalled because they had confusing or unusual names. Wayne Terwilliger

Wayne Terwilliger

Willard Wayne "Twig" Terwilliger is a former second baseman, coach, and manager in Major League Baseball.-Early life:...

, Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish

Cal McLish

Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish was a starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers , Pittsburgh Pirates , Chicago Cubs , Cleveland Indians , Cincinnati Reds , Chicago White Sox and Philadelphia Phillies...

, Coot Veal

Coot Veal

Orville Inman "Coot" Veal is a former Major League Baseball shortstop. He was signed by the Detroit Tigers before the season, and later drafted by the Washington Senators from the Tigers in the 1960 American League expansion draft...

, "Cot" Deal

Cot Deal

Ellis Ferguson "Cot" Deal is a former pitcher and coach in Major League Baseball. Listed at 5' 10.5", 185 lb., Deal was a switch-hitter and threw right-handed...

, Whammy Douglas, and Foster Castleman, fall into this category. The book has this to say about Foster Castleman, “Of course a ballplayer with a name like this is never going to amount to anything. If you have a name like an orthodontist you’re going to play like an orthodontist. The guy never really had a shot.” One item amusing to the authors was the player named Boyd Gail Harris

Gail Harris (baseball)

Boyd Gail Harris is a former Major League Baseball first baseman who played with the New York Giants and Detroit Tigers from 1955 to 1960. In 1958, Harris hit a career high 20 home runs with the Tigers....

, whose full name coincidentally matches the two authors' last names plus one of the authors' wife's name.

Cards about the card—
A good many of the capsules in the profiles section are more about the baseball card itself than the player depicted. In some the authors remark about the prevalence or difficulty in obtaining the card: "Toby Atwell

Toby Atwell

Maurice Dailey "Toby" Atwell was a catcher in Major League Baseball who played for the Chicago Cubs , Pittsburgh Pirates and Milwaukee Braves . Atwell batted left-handed and threw right-handed...

 has to be remembered by any serious collector of baseball cards in 1952 as having been one of the most difficult cards to acquire," the authors write. "The career of Toby Atwell as player was secondary to the career of Toby Atwell as baseball card, and if you needed him to complete your set too, you'll know what I mean." In many others, Harris and Boyd point out some absurdity, such as slipshod graphics, an absurd remark about the player, or the player's silly pose or expression. One example is Bob Cerv

Bob Cerv

Robert Henry Cerv was an American baseball player. Prior to his professional career he was a standout baseball and basketball player at the University of Nebraska....

's 1958 Topps card, where it looks as if he's whacking himself in the head with his bat. Another card fitting this category is that of pitcher Harvey Haddix

Harvey Haddix

Harvey Haddix, Jr. was a Major League Baseball left-handed pitcher who played with the St. Louis Cardinals , Philadelphia Phillies , Cincinnati Redlegs , Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles . Haddix was born in Medway, Ohio, located just outside of Springfield...

, who is best remembered for once having pitched 12 innings of perfect baseball only to lose the game in the 13th inning after allowing one hit. He is shown with a forlorn smile. The bio tells us that it “is the reluctantly self-deprecating smile of the perennially dumped-on, the wry smile of the universal victim, the man who expects very little of his peers and knows secretly that he’s going to have to settle for quite a good deal less.”

Style

Much of the book's humor and thus its appeal derives from the authors' style, which is integral to the narration. Although there are notable exceptions, for the most part the overt writing style could be characterized as breezy, goofy, and irreverent, at times to the point of being ridiculing. Somewhat curiously though, perhaps because of the reader's awareness of the authors' respect for the game and the inherent difficulty of playing it at the major league level, the ultimate effect is to glorify the effort made by the humdrum player because he was part of game that was a significant part of one’s youth. The following two quotes from the book are representative of the style used in the "Profiles" section:

Quick, name a major league baseball player who was born in San Remo, Italy, lived in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and couldn't hit. That's right--Reno Bertoia

Reno Bertoia

Reno Peter Bertoia was an Italian-Canadian professional baseball player, playing infield for the Detroit Tigers , Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins and Kansas City Athletics ....

.
OK. Name another one.
The back of Reno's card is interesting. It says that his average last year was .162 and that, although he did not get to play in too many ballgames, he gained valuable information about American League hurlers that would help him in the future. I suspect that the information he gathered was that every pitcher in the American League could get him out, and that perhaps he should try another line of work.

Now, it is not necessary for me to declare that Hector Lopez was the worst fielding third baseman in the history of baseball. Everyone knows that. It is more or less a matter of public record. But I do feel called upon somehow to try to indicate, if only for the historical archivists among us, the sheer depths of his innovative barbarousness. Hector Lopez was a butcher. Pure and Simple. A butcher. His range was about one step to either side, his hands seemed to be made of concrete and his defensive attitude was so cavalier and arbitrary as to hardly constitute an attitude at all. Hector did not simply field a groundball, he attacked it. Like a farmer trying to kill a snake with a stick. And his mishandling of routine infield flies was the sort of which legends are made. Hector Lopez was not just a bad fielder for a third baseman. In fact, Hector Lopez was not just a bad fielder for a baseball player. Hector Lopez was, when every factor has been taken into consideration, a bad fielder for a human being. The stands are full of obnoxious leather-lunged cretins who insist they can play better than most major leaguers. Well, in Hector's case they could have been right. I would like to go on record right here and now as declaring Hector Lopez the all-time worst fielding major league ballplayer. That's quite a responsibility there, Hector, but I have every confidence you'll be able to live up to it.

There are a few notable exceptions to the satirical style, in which straightforward reverence is paid, usually to the game's greats. The card for Ted Williams says simply, "In 1955, there were 77,263,127 male American human beings. And every one of them in his heart of hearts would have given two arms, a leg and his collection of Davy Crockett

Davy Crockett

David "Davy" Crockett was a celebrated 19th century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S...

 iron-ons to be Teddy Ballgame." (The glowing comments on the Williams card when juxtaposed with the rather disdainful ones in the closing section of the book about a 1955 Mickey Mantle card reflect the authors' Bostonian bias for the Red Sox in that team's fabled rivalry with the New York Yankees

New York Yankees

The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...

.)

The commentary accompanying Satchel Paige

Satchel Paige

Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige was an American baseball player whose pitching in the Negro leagues and in Major League Baseball made him a legend in his own lifetime...

's card lists Mr. Paiges oft-quoted "Rules for Staying Young" and concludes with the authors' own prophetic pronouncement: "Satchel Paige could have been the greatest pitcher in major league history, if he'd been given the chance. Don't look back, America, something might be gaining on you."

And the cards of Jackie Robinson

Jackie Robinson

Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947...

 and Roberto Clemente

Roberto Clemente

Roberto Clemente Walker was a Puerto Rican Major League Baseball right fielder. He was born in Carolina, Puerto Rico, the youngest of seven children. Clemente played his entire 18-year baseball career with the Pittsburgh Pirates . He was awarded the National League's Most Valuable Player Award in...

, in honor of their notable off-field heroics and recent deaths, are each posted on a black background with no comment at all.

Reviews, Citations & Legacy

Although the book was never a bestseller and has spent much more time out-of-print than in print since its publication, it has nonetheless attained a cult following and been frequently cited by many publications and online resources, such as wikipedia.com, in biographies of baseball players from the era. (cf. Dick Stuart

Dick Stuart

Richard Lee Stuart was a Major League Baseball first baseman from 1958 to 1966 and 1969. In 1967 and 1968, he played in Japan for the Taiyo Whales. Throughout his baseball career, Stuart was known as a fine hitter, but a subpar fielder, garnering the unique nickname of "Dr. Strangeglove" for his...

, Choo Choo Coleman, Rocky Bridges

Rocky Bridges

Everett Lamar "Rocky" Bridges is a former utility infielder with an 11-year career in American Major League Baseball from 1951 to 1961. He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals of the National League, and the Washington Senators, Detroit Tigers, Cleveland...

)

Perhaps the book's most lasting legacy is the contribution it made, albeit unwittingly, to the adult hobby of card collecting. Harris and Boyd, like many other boys who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, collected cards as youths, lost interest in the hobby in their teen years, and rekindled the hobby in their adult years. The difference was that Harris and Boyd actually wrote a book about it because at the time there were no others. As testament to the current popularity of baseball card collecting, the entry "baseball card" on eBay.com resulted in 236,010 items found as of 4/23/08.

At oldbaseball.com (The OBC Group) the book is referred to simply as "The Book." It has a customer rating at Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

as of 4/25/08 of 5 stars out of 5 (9 reviews). One Amazon reviewer summed up the book this way, "Somehow it all seems to mean something, even without seeming to try to mean anything. And therein lies the book's genius."

External links

• http://www.ericenders.com/books3_bbcard.htm (a review)
• http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/The_Great_American_Baseball_Card_Flipping%2C_Trading_and_Bubble_Gum_Book (Baseball-reference.com)
• http://www.angelfire.com/tx2/dickiethon/bubblegum.html (Dickie Thon Fan Club)
• http://www.geocities.com/chrisstufflestreet/archive25.html (The Archive)
• http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/24-karat-diamond-writing-gems-volume-2/ (The Hardball Times)